Public voting opens for this year’s Vimeo awards

That’s the message from the organisers of 2012 Vimeo Festival + Awards, who have announced that public voting has opened for this year’s event, which will be held in New York City in summer.

Anyone can choose their favourite videos and make their voice heard. If you haven’t already, create a Vimeo account and vote for your favourite videos at vimeoawards.com.

Voting closes on 30 April 2012.

The increasing popularity of creating, uploading and sharing content via Vimeo is expressed by the fact that organisers say they received almost 15,000 entries from 147 countries – double the entries of 2010’s inaugural Awards.

The video-sharing website received 4,775 entries from 42 European countries (nearly a third of global entries) with high concentrations of work coming from the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, The Netherlands, and Sweden.

“We wanted to shake things up this year,” says Jeremy Boxer, director of the Vimeo Festival + Awards. “We felt it was important for anyone and everyone around the world to be a part of this process – especially since we saw amazingly creative work across five continents.”

Organisers also announced a new set of judges to join the existing panel and include professional surfer Alana Blanchard in the Action Sports category, acclaimed directors/producers Mike Figgis and Peter Greenaway in Experimental and film-makerCasey Neistat in the Narrative category.

The Vimeo Festival + Awards takes place from 7–9 June, 2012, in New York City with a host of conversations with industry leaders; educational workshops for beginners, enthusiasts, and professionals; and a wide range of video screenings, which include this year’s winning videos and the premiere of Limbo (see trailer below), a new film by 2010 Grand Prize Winner Eliot Rausch, made using grant money from his award.

The event will kick off with the Vimeo Awards ceremony, held on 7 June in New York City, where Vimeo will recognise the best videos online by revealing the 2012 winners. The show will combine innovative projection, staging, sound, and sensory-reactive technologies with live performances and special surprises.

“There has never been a better time to be creator. The internet has created a leveled playing field, so that now everyone now can fundraise, shoot, edit, and distribute their projects. What’s next for online video? Well, that’s what we will be exploring at this year’s festival with the help of our awesome speakers.

“We have designed the festival to have something for everyone from any level of experience. Now that the barrier to entry has come crashing down perhaps we can find new creators with ideas yet to be seen and encourage so many others to start using their imagination so they too can start to create,” says Boxer.